‘Everyone should shop local’: Shoppers tout personal touch, ability to support community

Caitlin Shuda, Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune

HOW WE SHOP: PART TWO

As malls, shopping centers and big-box stores close, their struggles are adding momentum to the local shopping movement.

When Shelly Spranger, 39, and her daughter Camilla, 9, walked into Rustic Redefined in Wisconsin Rapids on a cool and drizzly June afternoon, they greeted the store owner by name.

Jodi Parmeter knows her regular customers’ names and tries to learn new names and faces as they stop by her store. She, too, greeted the Sprangers by name and offered to help them find what they were looking for.

As the Sprangers looked at dresses that had recently arrived at the store, conversations fell into the rhythm of friends. Spranger and Parmeter talked about the weather, work, their children and the activities and birthday parties they planned to attend. They found a couple of dresses Spranger liked before heading to the children's department where Camilla found a collection of treasures of her own.

It’s the type of scene that is pretty common when it comes to local shopping; there’s a relationship between the shop owner and customer. Parmeter told Spranger the brand she was just looking at on a display is run by great people. Spranger told Parmeter she wore a dress from the shop to a farmers market while on a vacation in California and someone asked her where she got it.

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin conducted a survey to ask readers about their shopping habits after Shopko announced it would close all its stores earlier this year. Hundreds of readers from across Wisconsin shared their habits and opinions. The simple answer is shopping is changing as big stores close and online shopping takes a larger share of the market. But there's more to it than that. One facet that several readers, including Spranger, brought up is shoppers' growing preference for doing business at locally-owned businesses whenever possible.

Spranger gets produce from farmers markets and goes to locally-owned coffee shops, restaurants and bars. She finds a lot of her clothes at local stores like Sweet Tea Clothing Co. or Rustic Redefined.

She isn't exclusively a local shopper. She turns to online shopping for household items and sports equipment and everyday clothing for her kids. Availability and price determine whether she orders online, too, she said.

But her preference remains very much local.

Parmeter opened Rustic Redefined in December 2017 and offered a selection of dresses, blouses, scarves, jewelry, log furniture and more. Eight months later, she expanded into a larger space at840 Huntington Ave. in Wisconsin Rapids. She also added a men's clothing department. Now, the store has its own children's section of clothes and accessories, too.

Parmeter says she has a solid base of regular customers, and new faces regularly stop in the shop. She expanded her store about the same time J.C. Penney closed in the summer of 2017, so she was able to pick up some of that store's former customers.

At the same time, she knows the shop-local movement is hardly universal. She said she's always surprised when people say there isn't anywhere to find clothes in Wisconsin Rapids with stores like J.C. Penney, Shopko and Younkers closing.

"I'm right here," she said.

Mall, big-box store closings fuel local shopping movement.

Mom-and-pop stores and family businesses were the bread and butter of downtown business districts in cities like Wisconsin Rapids before the emergence of big-box stores and shopping malls. As shopping patterns changed, those smaller stores struggled to compete. Many went out of business.

In Wisconsin Rapids, the proposal to build Rapids Mall in the 1970s faced months of resistance, protests and even restraining orders to block the development before it was built. Small businesses that stood in the area like Skelly Gas Stationand Anne Romanski's Bar and Rooms were forced to close and were torn down to prepare for the mall, which opened in 1978.

The Daily Tribune called the demolished businesses "victim(s) of progress and the Redevelopment Authority's urban renewal program" in an article published June 27, 1973.

The Rapids Mall survived for about 40 years before it closed its doors in 2018.

As malls, shopping centers and big-box stores close, their struggles are adding momentum to the local shopping movement.

Beth Lueck, 51, from Oregon, Wisconsin, told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin the big store closures are a great opportunity for people to start to recognize the differences between big-box stores and local shops, and to see the benefits of shopping locally.

Lueck said she tries hard to shop at locally-owned businesses. In the last five years, her shopping habits haven’t changed a lot; she said she worked as a retailer for years, but she has always respected the "mom- and pop-type stores."

Where We Shop: Shopping Local

Shoppers are finding a connection to local stores and owners they couldn't get at big retail stores.

Tork Mason, Stevens Point Journal

It’s important to visit the shops that are run by the people who donate to your church causes, run the local charities, support the local Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and sponsor Little League teams, Lueck said. They’re part of your community, and you’re supporting them as you keep your money in your local community, as well.

Lueck takes shopping local to a whole new level. She often looks for small, locally-owned stores all over the state and turns to Facebook and Instagram to find them. Ahead of a weekend trip or vacation, she will search Facebook for locally-owned shops to visit.

The concept of shopping local isn’t new, but it has been gaining traction across the U.S. The most prominent effort, perhaps, is Small Business Saturday, the annual late-November promotion started in 2010 by American Express to help small businesses gain exposure during the popular shopping days immediately after Thanksgiving.

“It’s not that we’re anti-big box, but we’re really pro-small box,” said Wendy Baumann, president of WWBIC. The group has partnered with American Express since the start of its Small Business Saturday initiative, but Baumann said the concept of the promotion should be remembered every day.

Baumann says there has been a surge in focusing on shopping small, and there are efforts throughout the state to focus on Main Streets and downtown areas.

Kenosha city leaders reached out to WWBIC five years ago and asked for help to revitalize an area in their downtown that they wanted to fill with local businesses, she said. The organization served as a connector between the city and local business owners and helped with resources like licenses and registration. Six local businesses relocated to that area.

The organization is also working with local businesses in Milwaukee and across the state ahead of the Democratic National Convention in July 2020 to promote services from paper printing and shoe shining to hospitality and dry cleaning. It’s an example of what WWBIC has been doing for more than 30 years on a larger level, Baumann said.

Baumann said WWBIC reaches out to elected officials, investors and clients to help everyone understand the importance of shopping locally.

Local shopping is about creating an experience.

Scott Larson, executive director of the Marshfield Area Chamber of Commerce & Industry, said it’s important to focus on buying local to keep money circulating in the community. More local shopping means there is more local money available for merchants, workers and for philanthropy within that same community.

It’s also about the experience of shopping, Larson said.

He has attended conferences and seminars about shopping habits and shopping locally, and he said there’s a broader effort across the country to make shopping a special event. In that regard, interest is turning back to businesses that can provide a unique experience. Small business owners are brainstorming new ideas to bring people in the door, like movie theater owners who offer full restaurant menus to create a new cinema experience, Larson said.

"We saw that, too, on Mother's Day weekend," Larson said. "We had our United Way do a wine walk. That was very popular. We had 14 storefronts as stops along the way. The participants go into each of those stores, then. It was about creating an experience."

Larson said there has been a community-wide effort to recruit businesses to Marshfield's downtown and to support them with activities and experiences to draw in customs.

Organizations like Main Street Marshfield focus specifically on that area of town. City officials are offering facade improvement money to help business owners improve the look of the downtown, and there's a combined effort across multiple organizations like the chamber of commerce to improve the area. As a result, Larson said they have seen several new owners buying property downtown.

A key part of the experience of shopping locally — particularly at a clothing shop or boutique — is getting to know the shop owner and building a relationship, Lueck said. You get great customer service and personal attention, but the benefits can be even more tangible.

A big-box store can order thousands of an item or brand, but a local shop owner might only buy five, she said. You’re more likely to get better quality and more original products from the local store than a cheaper product that has been mass-produced, Lueck said.

“It’s also not ‘cookie-cutter,’” Lueck said. “You’re not going to show up wearing the same thing as everybody else.”

Spranger said she likes how she can ask for help in a locally-owned store, but she might not feel comfortable asking in a large retail store. The help is personalized. She's had owners or employees at a local business recommend something she would never pick out for herself, and she's been surprisingly happy with the results. Spranger said she can also have a conversation of what styles she likes and an owner is likely to remember.

At Rustic Redefined, Parmeter pulled out a couple of long-sleeved flannel shirts from the back room to show Spranger. Parmeter had just bought them to sell at the store this fall, and she said she thought of Spranger.

Spranger said she loved them.

More stories from this series

Parmeter said those conversations, personal connections and relationships are a big part of owning a local business. She remembers customers and their styles and tries to call them when she gets something at the store they might like. She thinks of them when she's at market looking for new merchandise.

When it comes to shopping locally, Spranger encourages everyone to give it a try.

"Everyone should shop local," she said. "Support your friends and your neighbors and your community. Just do it!"

Contact a reporter

Caitlin Shuda covers business and retail for the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune and the Stevens Point Journal. You may contact her at cshuda@gannett.com or follow her on Twitter @CaitlinShuda.